How we scored it
Where it comes from
Glycol Stearate is the monoester of oleochemical stearic acid (from vegetable oil or tallow) with ethylene glycol, which is manufactured from petrochemical ethylene oxide. There is no natural route to ethylene glycol.
In plain English
A pearlescent wax that gives shampoos and lotions their opaque, pearly sheen and helps thicken them. It's made by combining a vegetable-oil fatty acid with a petrochemical building block called ethylene glycol.
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Structure
2-hydroxyethyl octadecanoate
References
- 1ISO 16128-1:2016 and ISO 16128-2:2017 — Guidelines on technical definitions and criteria for natural and organic cosmetic ingredients and products. ISO, Geneva.
- 2Glycol Stearate. PubChem CID 24762. National Center for Biotechnology Information. pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov ↗
- 3GLYCOL STEARATE. CosIng — European Commission cosmetic ingredient database. ec.europa.eu/cosing ↗
- 4GLYCOL STEARATE. CosIng u2014 European Commission database for information on cosmetic substances and ingredients. https://ec.europa.eu/growth/tools-databases/cosing/search?search=GLYCOL%20STEARATE